9 Ways to Get More Views on IGTV (That Actually Work)

Since its launch in 2018, IGTV has developed into an avenue where creators can share long-form videos. But getting more views on IGTV can be challenging.

IGTV is a great addition to your Instagram strategy—if you’re not utilizing it to distribute content, you’re missing out.

In this article, you will learn 9 tips that are guaranteed to skyrocket your views on IGTV.

By the end of the article, you should be able to apply these tips right away and see substantial results.

How to Get More Views on IGTV

To get more views on IGTV, you can promote it on Instagram stories, utilize hashtags, and add your niche to your name.

You can also send your IGTV videos to your followers and ask them for feedback.

If you have a lot of followers on other social media platforms, you can promote your videos there as well.

Here are 9 actionable ways you can use to get more views on IGTV:

Promote your IGTV on Instagram Stories
Use hashtags
Post great content
Post at the right time
Have a good thumbnail
Direct message your IGTV videos
Share it on other socials
Add your niche to your name
Check your insights

1. Promote your IGTV on Instagram Stories

Firstly, the most effective (and free) way you can use to promote your IGTV views is to use Instagram stories.

Some of you might already be doing this, but you definitely can be doing it better.

If you haven’t already know this, you can link your IGTV videos on your Instagram stories.

But if you don’t, here’s how you can do this.

1.1 Navigate to your IGTV post

In order to share your IGTV video to your story, navigate to it from your profile.

Once you’re on the video, tap on the “arrow” icon at the bottom of it.

1.2 Add Video to Your Story

After you tapped on the “arrow” icon, a navigation drawer will appear.

Tap on “Add Video to Your Story”.

1.3 Add the “Swipe Up” feature

Next, tap on the “link” icon to add the “Swipe Up” feature to your story, tap on the “+” icon, then tap on “Done”.

A great thing about adding an IGTV to your story is that you can add the swipe up feature without having 10k followers.

The “Swipe Up” feature is a great call to action where you can get more people to watch your videos.

1.4 Tap on “Your Story”

After you tapped on “Add Video to Your Story”, you will be brought over to the edit screen.

Simply tap on “Your Story” at the bottom of the screen to add your IGTV video to your story.

Here is what your Instagram story will look like from another account.

It should contain an IGTV video, and a “Swipe Up” option where people can swipe up to watch your video.

The “Swipe Up” feature is a compelling call to action to get people to watch your IGTV videos, so be sure to add them whenever you’re adding it to your story.

In addition, you can add a text or a GIF that prompts the user to swipe up for better results.

2. Use hashtags

Next, you can do something that a lot of people aren’t doing—adding hashtags on your story.

A lot of people aren’t aware that they can add hashtags to their stories.

Do note that adding a hashtag to your IGTV video description is completely different from adding a hashtag to your story!

A common misconception is that people think that the hashtags in your IGTV video description have the same effect as adding them to your story—that’s not the case!

Instagram story hashtags make your video appear on the profile photo of a hashtag search result, while hashtags in your IGTV video description make it appear on the hashtag results and the explore pages.

Confused? Here’s an example of what happens when you add a hashtag on your story.

When you add a hashtag on your story, it will be showcased on the profile image of the hashtag search results.

Instagram have recommended that you use a maximum of 3 to 5 hashtags on your posts, but you can apply it to your stories as well.

However, it’s proven that you can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram to produce maximum results.

Here’s a great tip where you can add hashtags to your stories without overcrowding it.

2.1 Add a few relevant hashtags on your story

Firstly, add a few relevant hashtags (no more than 30) on your story.

2.2 Shrink your hashtags

Then, you’ll want to shrink your hashtags by pinching it with two fingers on your screen.

By shrinking your hashtags, you’ll be able to cover it with text in the final step.

2.3 Cover your hashtags

Lastly, cover your hashtags with a call to action text like, “Swipe up to watch my new video!” to prompt users to watch your IGTV video.

Covering your hashtags is important because you don’t want to overcrowd your stories.

What’s great about adding hashtags on your stories is that it allows your posts to be seen by others that are not following you.

In other words, adding hashtags will increase the reach of your posts because it allows your content to get noticed by others.

With the Instagram update a few years back, Instagram added the story feature to the hashtag search results.

The story feature in the hashtag search results is a great way for your stories to get traction.

This is because people rarely add hashtags on their stories, so it’s very low in competition.

For example, if you were to search for a hashtag (e.g. igtv), and tap on the story, there’ll only be a few stories on there.

This means that anyone that taps on the hashtag’s story will be able to see yours, and go to your IGTV video.

3. Post great content

Thirdly, you have to create and post great content in order to get more IGTV views.

This is the golden rule for all creators which is very important but not very obvious to many people.

You need to post great content whether it is an IGTV video, or even your stories as you’re trying to get people into your video.

By creating quality content that is native to IGTV, it is more likely to be shared by others. This will get you more views, likes, and comments.

So what is defined as ‘great’ or ‘quality’ content? In order to determine whether your content is of quality, you can benchmark it with other videos from popular creators.

If the standard of the video is poor as compared to other creators’, then you should try to remake it.

4. Post at the right time

Next, to get more views on IGTV, you’ll have to post at the right time.

This is very similar to when you’re posting photos to your feed.

You want to make sure that you’re posting during the peak hours when your followers are on the app.

If your profile is a business one, you can check the optimum time for engagement from your insights.

Typically, late afternoons and nights are the best times you can post on Instagram.

If the demographic of your audience is teens and young adults (18 to 30), they are most likely busy from 9 am to 5 pm.

Hence, the best time you can post is 6 pm to 11 pm to get the most visibility.

5. Have a good thumbnail

Selecting a good thumbnail is crucial if you want to get more views on IGTV.

Similar to YouTube, you need an enticing thumbnail to get users to click on your video.

When people are checking their IGTV feed, you want to have a thumbnail that captures people’s attention.

There are so many IGTV videos, so you need to have a good thumbnail in order to stand out from the rest.

Also, a quick side-note, although the size of the thumbnails are 1080 x 1680 px, they are cut short.

Thus, it’s best that you make a custom thumbnail for your videos so that it accommodates the size limit.

So instead of picking your thumbnail from your video, you can create a custom one to appeal to your audience.

6. Direct message your IGTV videos

Step number 5 is to send a direct message of your IGTV video.

This tip is fairly straightforward but many people don’t do it.

After you post an IGTV video, you can send it to people that cares about or are interested in your content.

A great way to do this is to send the video and ask for some feedback.

Here’s an example of a direct message you can send:

“Hey, I recorded a video of the ocean recently. What do you think of it?”.

A simple direct message can convert really well, especially if you’re reaching out to people that care.

7. Share it on other socials

Next, you can get more views on IGTV by sharing it on other social media platforms.

For all of your IGTV videos, you are given the option to copy the link of it by tapping on the “triple dots” icon.

You can copy the link of an IGTV video and share it to your given platform.

In addition, you can tap on “Share to…” to share your post seamlessly to Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.

If you want to get more views on IGTV, it’s important to share it everywhere, and not only Instagram to increase its reach.

By putting out your video on Instagram only, you’ll be limiting its reach.

8. Add your niche to your name

An unconventional way to increase the reach of your IGTV videos is to add your niche to your name.

Whenever you search for something on IGTV, you can only search the username of a person.

This is a huge problem because you can’t search for videos based on their topic, but people still do this anyway.

What you want to do is to add a word or a few words related to your niche or topic beside your name.

For example, if you are in the marketing nice, you can add “Marketing Tips” on your name.

This makes it so that whenever someone searches for the term, “marketing tips”, users that have it on their name will be on the search result page.

There are lots of people who do this as it can attract the right people who are interested in your content.

Another example is if you want to watch some fitness videos, you’d search for “fitness videos” on IGTV.

Ass you can see, the search results contain people that have added the term “fitness videos” in their name.

Hence, adding a niche or a term on your name can boost your visibility on IGTV.

9. Check your insights

The final way to get more views on IGTV is to make use of your insights.

Though IGTV insights is still very limited, you can still see the number of views, likes and comments it has.

It’s also worth noting that a view is counted when someone watches your video for more than 3 seconds.

Insights are also very useful if you want to track your audience retention.

You can use the IGTV insights to find content that performs the best and make more of those content to keep your audience engaged.

Final Thoughts

IGTV is very similar to YouTube, where you can post long videos to drive audience engagement and conversions.

If you’re not utilizing it as part of your Instagram strategy, you might want to to try it out.

There are multiple ways you can use to get more views on IGTV as mentioned above.

At the end of the day, you need to experiment on what works, and what doesn’t if you want to succeed on IGTV.

9 Ways to Get More Views on IGTV (That Actually Work)

How to Get More Views on IGTV